About Me

My photo
Alaska, United States
I am owned by Pauline and Mark Blasky. My hull was built at the Duncan Marine Yard in Taiwan and launched in Dec of 1980. It is a William Garden design based on the Pixie Design and called by Duncan Marine a Freedom 45. They are the fourth owners and have owned me the longest. They have done extensive refitting to me including replacing my entire deck structure and rig. My masts are roughly 10% taller than original and now are made of aluminium as opposed to the original wood ones, which, though pretty, were always problematic. You can read more about me under "MORE ABOUT SARI TIMUR"

March 30, 2015

Sakura

Have been a great couple of days of beer, food and Sakura (cherry blossom).






March 26, 2015

Progress

For those of you who read this yesterday.  Here is an update.  The chain is on board and so are the new sails.  We arrive in Mishima and the beer is still good!





Well the port side cabin top is now painted.  The window re varnished and ready to put the storm window back on.

The wind instruments are up and running.  We haven't tried out the new display we ordered just in case the instruments were not compatible. We are actually not sure where we want to mount it or if we are going to, so that is on hold.  One thought is in the aft cabin so when those middle of the night storms blow we can monitor wind speeds easier..  But no rush on that.

The new chain arrived, so we took the old chain off, saving 10 metres of it for the stern anchor.  The new chain will be marked, spliced on to the short piece of rode we have in case of emergency and loaded back into the locker today.

So tomorrow it we are off to Shuzenji and Gotemba with the Toroa crew for a cherry blossom visit and to drink some good beer.

Mark's dad was scheduled for gall stone surgery yesterday their time so we are waiting to hear how that went.  The doctors are being cautious due to the aneurism problem area he has.  So a little apprehensive but hopefully he will feel better soon.  Pauline's mom went through that a couple years back.

Anyway we have kind of mapped out our passage back to Hiroshima.  Not cast in stone yet i.e. We have not applied for our closed ports permit yet.  But we are down to just the final provisioning and loading the new sails on board, and of course clearing a space for them.  We hope not to use them until we get to Alaska.  But just in case we have a new set of everything except the Genoa which is in pretty good shape.

It looks like Toroa might tag along with us at least part way to Hiroshima so that should be fun.  Present plan is to leave Easter weekend.

March 18, 2015

We Are Now International Again

Before we did the rally we were asked to convert our boat to a temporary local boat with Japanese customs.  This would make rally operations easier and allow locals to join the boat from port to port with out too much paperwork.  However it meant we couldn't get duty free diesel and most recently we are to receive three new sails and covers from overseas and would have to pay the local sales tax. By converting back to international a couple of months early it means we have to do a bit more paperwork as we pass through ports on our way to Hokkaido but we save nearly 160,000 yen.  So it was really a no brainier.  Now we can afford another side trip to Baird Brewery before we leave Osaka.  Our new scheduled departure from Osaka is 3rd of April.  But that is Good Friday so may be the 4th.  We will then work our way back to Hiroshima and wait for a weather window in the Japan Sea side.

Updates on the wind instruments.  We have finished putting the mounting bracket on top of the mast but could not get a 1 inch stainless pole with 14 threads per inch machined on one side here in Japan. So we ordered one from West Marine.  Hopefully we will have it next week.  Today would have been nice to have it as it was blowing pretty good.  We guess about 35 knots.

March 14, 2015

More to back on board

The main unit to our wind instruments arrived.  West Marine decided to ship what they had in stock and ship the cables and display later.  Luckily I had a small test cable so I could test the instrument and I am pleased to let everyone know the Maretron WSO 100 plugs in seamlessly.  The only drawbacks are the head has to be mounted straight, the adjustment software doesn't work.  The other one is it requires a different type of mount.  But the plus on this is, that this kind of mount makes it easy to get the alignment correct.

On another front our friends here that are in the process of doing the pre season maintenance on their boats came by to hack at one of the leaks we have had all winter.  I would never have thought to do it the way they did but it was a pleasure to see done.  Let's hope it works.

March 12, 2015

Back on Board

We arrived late last night on to Sari Timur.  We think she was happy to see us as she did not throw any temper tantrums.

For those of you who have been following our blog you know that just before we left we found out all of our instruments failed.  Well this morning mixed in with unpacking we decided to do some trouble shooting.  Interestingly enough the wind instruments came on for a very short while but nothing else.  But then it started showing erroneous data before dying.  Anyway a lot of troubleshooting proved that it was indeed the wind instruments.  Once they were disconnected GPS, chart plotter and radar all work ok.  Luckily we ordered a new set of wind instruments and should have them next week.

March 11, 2015

On Our Way Back

Our bags are packed and we are ready to go!  We head back to Sari Timur today.  Been a great trip here in Singapore and we managed to see a large share of the people we had hoped to meet up with.  Some of you slipped through and we missed you.  But hey you can always come and visit us in Alaska.  We look like we will be in Osaka until at least first April so if you do not want to travel all the way to Alaska hurry up and catch us in Osaka.  Heyko and Rose we are really bummed we didn't know you guys were in town until after you left.  Hope to see you in Japan before we leave.  Keep us posted on your progress northwards.